District 58 purchases second round of iPads

Grade School District 58 approved buying another 820 iPad minis for students to use during the upcoming school year.

The District 58 school board voted Monday to spend just over $253,000 to add to the 650 devices purchased in May for about $200,000.

The iPads are part of the district's ongoing effort to provide a device to all 5,000 students over the next three years with the new school year being the test-drive before additional purchases are made. A few grades at each elementary school will get to try out their own devices, Superintendent Kari Cremascoli said.

"We really are hoping to closely monitor that implementation, refine that practice, and evaluate the outcomes and see what difference that makes for our students," Cremascoli said.

The district did brief trials with individual iPads, called learning labs, earlier this year. Matt Rich, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction, told board members that administrators will examine several factors, such as student engagement, to see if the iPads are successful as teaching tools.

"One of the things I really hope that we'll be able to hear qualitatively, is kids coming home, sitting at the dinner table and talking about what they did at school today," Rich said. "We noticed that with the learning labs, that parents were having a much clearer perception of what was going on. We have to listen to those stories, because those are meaningful."

Rich and Scott Meech, technology director, said that the district is trying to have iPads supplement rather than replace components of an established curriculum, differing from strategies seen in Los Angeles and Miami-Dade County.

"I think these large models are very focused on, 'We want to provide these kids devices,'" Meech said.

"This is a learning initiative with technology being a tool," Rich said. "It's not as with L.A. or Dade County where it's all about the tool ... the tool is going to solve the problem. The tool is an accelerant for us doing a lot with learning."

One goal, Rich added, is that the iPads will help increase communication and collaboration among students.

"These rooms should be loud," he said. "It should be a very vibrant class atmosphere."